Parent Category: Convergence

Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2010 is now gone and I am certainly looking forward for what's next. This Convergence happens to be the first I attended since the days of Stampede and the stats are even more impressive: 8,500 attendees and 400+ sessions, 84 Microsoft Dynamics GP specific sessions, 100+ presenters.

Thanks to all of you who went to our sessions and showed your support and encouragement for the work we've done over the years in the Microsoft Dynamics GP community. We sincerely appreciate it. On our end, we will continue to encourage you to fill out your evaluations, use the tools we demonstrated, visit the Microsoft Dynamics Community site, use the forums and newsgroups, and ask the hard questions.

As mentioned in my earlier post, See you at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2010, I would provide details of the sessions that Mariano and I will be presenting. So here they, please make sure you attend these sessions as we have some great material to show you.

It’s day three here in New Orleans, and the past few days have been full of sessions, meetings, demos, and newsworthy announcements! I want to quickly recap just a few of them that our GP Insiders not attending may find interesting…

Extender gets a facelift: One of our most popular add-ons has always been Extender, which gives users the ability to easily add additional windows and fields to an existing GP form/window. We are happy to announce that some very cool functionality will be added to Extender in our SP4 release (slated for a July drop), allowing you to add entirely independent forms to Microsoft Dynamics GP without having to attach them to an existing GP form/window! This will open up entirely new ways for partners and end users to customize Dynamics GP, all within a completely NON developer user interface. We’ve done a number of demos and a couple of sessions on this functionality this week, and so far the reaction has been VERY positive. One more note about this…the price for the Extender module will be going up on August 1st (an increase of around $700), so BUY IT NOW! That’s right folks, Extender…

Tuesday- Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2010 day 4 marked the beginning of the end. However, it wasn't looking like that for David and I. After all, this would be the day we would be repeating both sessions, CSGPR28 - Microsoft Dynamics GP Customization Tools Unravelled and CSGPR29 - Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP Like the Pros.

First up was CSGPR28. The session went down well with attendees demanding more time given the number of tools involved. David and I reckon an hour is definately short for this type of topic, but the overall idea of showing the capabilities of the various tools is there, highlighting there is not one "best" tool to get the job done.

We took a break to go to lunch in the Meal Hall, we were joined by Mr. Beat Bucher from Forensic Technology. Lunch was short lived and off we went to catch MVP Mark Polino's session CSGPR07 - Getting more out of Microsoft Dynamics GP: 50 MORE Tips in 50 Minutes. Mark wowed the…

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Saturday. This was the first day of the Convergence conference. While officially Convergence did not start until the afternoon, Mariano and I went down in the morning to register as speakers for the conference and help out where we could.

The big sign at the entrance says it all .... Welcome to Convergence 2010.

We spent some time helping set up the Microsoft Dynamics GP stand in the Expo Hall (B1-2) and took the opportunity to visit Microsoft Convergence store. Everyone always teases me, but I like logo wear and have clothing with many of the different…

After a day of working with Mariano (my co-presenter) to fine tune our presentations, I went with Leslie Vail to a pre-Convergence party organised by my friends at Rockton Software. It was great to catch up with Mark and Kelly as well as Ora from Mekorma (who I had not seen in years).

As is becoming a tradition when I visit the US, I brought some Arnott's Tim Tams chocolate biscuits with me from Australia and challenged everyone at the party to try…

I had a great time at Convergence this week. With ~8,500 people in attendance this was quite an event that Microsoft pulled off remarkably. Here's are some of my takes on the conference and some reasons why you should consider attending next year:

1. Learning Opportunities galore! The opportunity for education and learning for everyone at Convergence is at an all time high.

I finally got to see a Polino 50 Tips session. You can download the slide deck here http://msdynamicsgp.blogspot.com/2010/04/convergence-2010-50-more-tips-in-50.html. I've been a GP consultant since 1997 and started working with Mark in 1999. Yet, I still learned a lot in this session. Even if you're the most seasoned consultant, GP administrator, or power user you need to check this out. Plus, if you sit up front you are better looking for it.

The interactive sessions were great. GPUG sponsored a session in which we discussed various solutions, problems, and uses applicable to SmartList Builder for Dynamics GP. Participants had an open forum with industry experts & Microsoft Support Engineers to voice their requirements or problems and get immediate feedback, suggestions, and in many cases solutions on the spot. That type of response alone was worth the price of admission.

All Dynamics GP Partners are welcome to join the GP Partner Connections group for a meeting over lunch on Monday April 26 from Noon to 1pm. We’ll be in the Convergence Meal Hall in the reserved section for User…

Monday - Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2010 day 3 began with a bang. David and I would be on stage at 10:30 AM to present our second session, CSGP29 - Administering Microsoft Dynamics GP like the pros. We had high expectations for this session since it was our chance to present the Support Debugging Tool.

We attended a security session presented by Microsoft's Lucas Miller which would serve as entrée to our session. Very interesting to note is that most attendees in the security session showed up immediately after to our session.

CSGP29 went down very well with the attendees, as Support Debugging Tool one again proved that it can centralize a great deal of Microsoft Dynamics GP administrative tasks. I believe the feature that attendees appreciate the most is the powerful security administration via Security Profiler

Today, I had the opportunity to drive down to the Georgia World Congress Center with my wife. Not a bad thing considering the long day ahead. Taking one car was also a smart move as we figured it would be quite a long day and we both would need the other to talk to stay awake on our way back home.

The big event of the day was the opening keynote sessions with Stephen Elop and Kirill Tatarinov. I had the opportunity to update The Dynamics GP Blogster Facebook page with the highlights of the event. If you were there, you will have to agree with me that one of the coolest moments of the Keynote was the introduction of the New…

I met up with David to register at the event and go to the Expo hall where we were scheduled to assist with the Microsoft Dynamics GP booth setup. Most of the partners and ISVs with a booth on the Expo hall were also in the process of setting up their stands.

Microsoft Dynamics GP booth

Partners and ISVs getting ready for action

Our assistance consisted of transferring some Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 Hyper-V images off external hard drives onto the computers that would be used to power the demo flat screens. That would take approximately one hour!